Just an update to my first no-chill attempt that I previously posted about here.

It turned out great! It was a brown porter and I simply transferred the near boiling wort to a corny keg and fermented in the keg. Once fermentation was complete I racked it to a fresh keg, chilled, carbed, and drank it. Neither I nor anyone else who tried the beer had anything bad to say about it. I couldn't tell any difference between this no-chill beer and those that were rapidly chilled using an immersion chiller.

I want to jump back in with an observation I keep having. Regarding the "transfer" addition of hops (ie, hops placed in the No Chill vessel as the hot wort is poured in), I am still convinced that while Pol's original idea that they count as a 20 Minute Addition is correct in terms of the flavor provided, it seems like they do NOT count as a 20min addition for the Bitterness. I am thinking they don't provide many IBU's at all.

I've done 2-3 beers with a basic bittering addition, and then a load of hops (2-3 ounces) as the 'transfer' addition, and NONE of them seem as bitter as they should if that transfer addition counted as a 20 minute addition for IBU calculation.

My most recent beer was a Scottish ESB (Golden Promise, WLP028, a little crystal & wheat) had the following hops:

The beer is very balanced, as a classic ESB should, but if that transfer addition counted as 20min for IBU's, then it should clock in at around 70 IBU. It most certainly does NOT taste like 70. I punched the transfer addition in as a "Post Boil" addition into Hopville's recipe calculator and got an estimated IBU amount of about 35, which tastes pretty accurate to me.

Caveat: for this beer, I let the wort cool to about 180-185F before transferring it into the Cube. However, I did an English Pale Ale some months ago with 3oz of about 5-6% AA East Kent Goldings as the transfer addition, poured into the cube at 200+F and got the same kind of result. That beer was down-right sweet.

I don't want to find the post with his table in it but I have to say I kind of agree with you ghpeel. I'm finding that I am not getting nearly as many IBUs from cube hopping as I expected when I first started this. I get more flavor but not too much aroma either. I haven't cube hopped for a while because I don't fully understand how it will affect the beer yet.

However, for the last 4 batches roughly 2/3 of my total hops are going in FWH and I have been loving the results. FWH combined with an addition at 30-20min has been great for my less hoppy beers and for an Irish red it was FWH>45min>15min and I loved it. There isn't too much science to my method yet, maybe I willl have enough data compiled to understand my utilization better, but for now I kinda look at the recipe and try my best to decide how I should do them with the increased hop utilization we are supposed to be receiving.

H-ost, how much bitterness are you tasting from your FWH? I know the supposed IBU count is higher, but perceived bitterness is much lower. Would you mind posting your recipe for that Irish Red so that I can see the hop schedule?

And yeah, I also don't get any aroma with cube hopping, just flavor. Which is the reason I suspect Pol pegged it at a 20min addition, cause that's what you'd expect, I suppose.

It would be a fun experiment to do a no-boiled-hop beer. Just FWH, cube hopping and dry hopping.

I have been almost exclusively doing no-chill for all my batches. Unless there is some sort of external factor forcing me to chill right after brewing I always leave it overnight. Needless to say I have yet to have a bad beer from it.

I am curious what the ratio of cuber's vs. kettle chiller's are.

I just leave it overnight in the same kettle I boiled it in. I simply clean the lid and lock it down with alligator clips. It takes less then 24 hours (sometimes >16 hours during winter) to reach pitching temperatures at which point I move it into the primary and throw in the yeast.

Maybe I am missing something here, but what is the real advantage of the cube? I no chill because of sheer laziness, so moving near boiling hot wort from one container to another seems redundant if leaving it serves the same purpose.

Is it because in the hotter climates you may be required to leave it for several days before its ready for pitching?

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I like cubes for a few reasons. Like last brew I was to lazy to pitch for 3 days. I prefer to do all my cleaning at one time and if I let it sit in the BK the trub and junk would take more effort to clean than a spray with the hose. I do 10 gallon batches and sometimes only have one fermenter open so I have to leave 5 gallons in a cube for a little while. I use a spigot on my BK and that would clog after everything settled over night plus I would have to sanitize that the next day unless I wanted to use a siphon to make my transfer. I like my cubes and i don't think chilling my BK is the best option for my process.

I have been almost exclusively doing no-chill for all my batches. Unless there is some sort of external factor forcing me to chill right after brewing I always leave it overnight. Needless to say I have yet to have a bad beer from it.

I am curious what the ratio of cuber's vs. kettle chiller's are.

I just leave it overnight in the same kettle I boiled it in. I simply clean the lid and lock it down with alligator clips. It takes less then 24 hours (sometimes >16 hours during winter) to reach pitching temperatures at which point I move it into the primary and throw in the yeast.

Do you have an Aluminum or SS kettle. My 1st attempt at no-chill I tried leaving in my Aluminum kettle overnight to cool, wrapped tight with foil. The next morning it had an awful smell & band-aid taste. I fermented for 3 weeks. It has been in the keg for another 3 weeks now, it is getting worse. I don't know if it was the kettle or something else. The rest of my process was the same one that has produced very good beers. I have gone back to chilling until I can figure this out.